They are all prominent figures — politicians, intellectuals, journalists and even France’s former national rugby team manager — and they are used to the rough and tumble of public debate. But when they discovered that they had been insulted in terms worthy of a school playground by members of the judiciary, it was all too much to take.

Fury greeted the disclosure that judges had pinned up photographs of some of the country’s most illustrious men and women under the words Le Mur des Cons (the Wall of Prats).